New York fruit and vegetable farmers struggle with produce-pricing crisis

Gillibrand calls on USDA to investigate why prices paid
to farmers aren’t keeping up with the market

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a member of the Senate
Agriculture Committee, called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to
investigate if fruit and vegetable farmers in New York and across the country
are receiving fair prices for their produce. She said the prices of fruits and
vegetables have increased for grocery store and wholesale buyers, but the
prices that farmers receive for these same products has not kept up with these
increases.

In some cases, she said, they’ve even gone down.

“Our New York farmers are facing a produce-pricing crisis.
Throughout the state, fresh fruit and vegetable growers are hurting because the
prices they get for their produce have stayed flat, and in some cases have even
gone down, while the middlemen who move the produce from farmers to grocery
stores and grocery store shoppers have seen the prices for the same produce
increase,” said Gillibrand, a member of the Senate Agriculture
Committee. “Despite this, the USDA has not reviewed the fruit and
vegetable industry in decades. We need to understand what is causing these
unfair prices for our farmers, and I am calling on the USDA to complete a
top-to-bottom review of the fruit and vegetable industry so that we can help
New York’s farmers better price their produce and plan for their future.”

There are thousands of farms and orchards throughout New
York State, and New York consistently ranks as one of the top agricultural
states in the nation. However, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
and National Agricultural Statistics Service shows that the prices paid to
farmers for many of New York’s specialty crops – including apples, snap beans,
cabbage, and broccoli – lag behand the terminal prices (the prices that the
middle men who move these same crops from farms to grocery stores receive).
Furthermore, structural changes to the fruit and vegetable industry in recent
decades, such as new farming technology, nutrition science, and consumer
behavior, have left farmers facing uncertainty as they feel that the market is
not transparent enough to know if the price they are offered for their produce
is fair.

The persistently low prices that farmers receive for their
fruits and vegetables have led to the loss of small family farms, and in the
last five years alone, New York lost 11,000 acres of vegetable production. The
USDA has failed to conduct a full review of the fresh fruit and vegetable
market for decades, and Gillibrand’s push for a new study of this industry
would help identify which factors contribute to unfair prices for farmers and
increase transparency in the market. Gillibrand is also calling for the USDA to
use new technology to improve farm sales reporting to ensure that data is
updated in real time, increasing transparency for farmers and allowing them to
see if the prices they receive are fair.

The full text of Senator Gillibrand’s letter to the USDA can
be found here.